


every atom of me (and every atom of you)

by versipelle



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Bickering, Books, Canon May Joss This, Derek Plays Pokemon, First Kiss, His Dark Materials - Freeform, M/M, Misunderstandings, One Shot, Post Season 3, Sheriff Stilinski Gets The Wrong Idea, Sleepy Derek, Stiles Reads to Derek
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-17
Updated: 2013-09-17
Packaged: 2017-12-26 20:27:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,621
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/969948
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/versipelle/pseuds/versipelle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Derek comes back to Beacon Hills, but Stiles doesn't give him the warmest welcome.</p>
<p>After they bicker through their feelings, Stiles reads to him until they get interrupted...</p>
            </blockquote>





	every atom of me (and every atom of you)

**Author's Note:**

> _Every atom of me and every atom of you... We'll live in birds and flowers and dragonflies and pine trees and in clouds and in those little specks of light you see floating in sunbeams... And when they use our atoms to make new lives, they won't just be able to take one, they'll have to take two, one of you and one of me, we'll be joined so tight...”_
> 
> _The Amber Spyglass_ , Philip Pullman

Stiles found out that Derek was back when three irregular taps broke the afternoon silence. Frowning, he rose from where he lay, stomach pressed against the bed with the musty tome Deaton had leant him propped up with a pillow in front of him. He opened the window and looked down.

Derek eschewed a typical greeting. “Since when do you shut your window?”

“Since people stopped using it as an entrance,” Stiles replied.

He pulled his head in, and Derek expected the window to close on him but it remained open. Stiles’s head popped back out after a few moments. “Can you get up here already, I want to close this thing.” Derek wasn’t sure what was colder, the air or the welcome.

***

The room had changed while he’d been away. The sparse blue walls punctuated by posters of bands Derek had never heard of were now hidden behind printed out maps and symbols and pages from spellbooks and bestiaries, the old posters fighting to breathe between them. One wall didn’t even get this luxury, with three quarters of it’s surface gone, three giant bookcases covering it with the computer desk sandwiched between them providing the only open space.

Stiles too had changed, his shoulders broadened and shirts tighter across his chest, his hair even longer and messier. One half was currently stuck up in an awkward quiff where Stiles had run his hand through it while reading the book sprawled across the sheets, pages slowly creasing as the weight forced it flat. Derek pointed a finger at it, and Stiles turned quizzically before diving on the bed and frantically smoothing the creased pages out with his fingers.

Derek tried not to notice the movement of his hand or how his shorts rode up around his thighs as he pulled himself up from the bed, but he still felt his cheeks redden when Stiles’s eyes met his own.

“Deaton will kill me if I ruin this book.”

“It’s not the first one, is it?”

Instead of answering, Stiles fixed him with an unusually steel gaze. “You don’t get to do that, you know,” he said. “You don’t get to just walk back in and treat me this way. I’m not your little toy to push around any more, Derek. I have a life again, responsibilities outside of running around cleaning up your mess. But of course you wouldn’t know that, because you weren’t here, were you?”

Derek opened his mouth to say something, but Stiles shook his head.

“No, you don’t interrupt me. You don’t interrupt me, you don’t make fun of me, you don’t get to do anything. You get to stand there, and listen to me tear you a new one because you deserve it. You didn’t even say goodbye.”

His breath was quickening, his face red from the effort of forcing out his anger.

Instead of arguing back, Derek found himself saying, “it’s not just this room that’s changed, then.”

Stiles sagged down into the sheets.

“That’s all you took from that, seriously?”

“No, it wasn’t -- I didn’t know I needed to say goodbye.”

His voice was quieter and softer than Stiles had ever remembered hearing it, which was the only reason he didn’t decide to carry on his tirade and instead said, “of course you needed to say goodbye. We’ve saved each others lives too often to count, and it’s not like someone was paying me to do it, you know?”

“Well, I’m sorry.”

They spent a long moment staring at each other, sizing each other up like this was the first time they’d ever met; which, considering the changes both of them had been though, wasn’t too far off. Stiles was still Stiles at his core, and therefore broke the silence long before Derek would have dreamed of doing so.

“So is this a temporary visit?”

“I don’t know,” Derek replied with a hint of a smile. “It depends if everyone is going to be as hard on me as you are, or I might just pack up and run.” He waited, watching as Stiles furiously tried not to smile.

“I see you picked up a sense of humour on your travels,” he grumbled, but Derek could see from the spark that had come back into his eyes that he was pleased about it secretly. “Scott will be pleased he doesn’t have to be my verbal sparring partner any more.”

“I bet you’ve been torturing him,” Derek replied.

Stiles shrugged. “He’s gotten quite good. You’ll have to see for yourself.”

Derek let out a comical groan. “I can’t wait,” he joked.

***

The conversation fell into awkward silence, Derek casting his eye around the room for something to discuss, not wanting to leave just yet, not now he was making some headway with Stiles. He sat himself down in the computer chair without asking, spinning round nonchalantly, eyeing up the bookcases appraisingly.

They weren’t just filled with research like Derek originally thought, although the shelves were a hotch-potch of brownish-green and red spines with gold and silver writing spidered across them, and multicoloured brash titles that all cried for attention at once.

“These are new,” he offered.

He seemed to have chosen well; the books were a clear source of enthusiasm to Stiles and having someone new to gush over them with revitalised him in Derek’s eyes, brought him back to the messy whirlwind of a kid he remembered so fondly.

He still couldn’t quite believe he _had_ missed Stiles, but it was an undeniable truth by now. Cora had seen it too, told him he had to go back because Beacon Hills and the people in it were a necessary part of his being that they just weren’t for her. I don’t need to go back, she’d told him, but you do.

So come back is exactly what he’d done, sad to leave his one remaining sister in a foreign place, but eager to get back to his old routines. One of which was this, strange as it was. Stiles was currently explaining the concept of kitsunes to him, werefoxes from Japan that are more powerful the more tails they have.

“Scott’s girlfriend told us about them,” Stiles said. “You don’t know her, obviously. Her name’s Kira.”

Derek wasn’t really paying attention, thinking about the foxes still.

“They sound like Vulpix and Ninetales.”

Stiles pulled one of his many shocked faces at that, jaw slowly swinging back and forth as he blinked his way through his thought processes. “Did you always have this hidden away?” he said at last. “The old Derek Hale would never have segued a geeky conversation into an even geekier one, as awesome as that is.”

“This is the old Derek Hale,” Derek responded. “The one you knew was the new one.”

“Let’s hope he stays then. The new Derek Hale was kind of an asshole.”

Derek laughed, considered punching Stiles in the arm jovially but despite losing some of his power from relinquishing his Alpha status, he would still probably do some damage, so he decided against it. “I’d play on an old Gameboy bored in motels on the drive back here, that’s why it was on my mind,” he said, changing the subject away from the guy he wished he hadn’t been. “I have a Ninetales on my team.”

“I hope you’re not one of those guys who only believes in the first 151, that shit’s not cool,” Stiles said hotly.

Derek laughed again. “No, it was just cheap and easy. Plus I was feeling nostalgic.”

“So what else did you do while you were away?”

“We didn’t do much. We spent more time in hotels than I’d care to think about, but it was nice to not worry about things for the first time in years. Eventually though I got tired of being away from here, it’s still home even if it’s not the happiest of places for me.”

“What about Cora?” Stiles asked, sensing something Derek wasn’t saying.

“She doesn’t have the same connection to this town like I do, so she stayed. I gave her the Toyota so she could carry on travelling if she wanted, threw most of my money away on another Camaro because I have a weakness for the damn things, and started my way back here. Stayed in the cheapest, nastiest places I could find to conserve money.”

“Hence the Gameboy.”

“Hence the Gameboy.”

***

Stiles glanced around the room, and Derek was unsure if he was searching for something physical or just something to say. He didn't think things would fade into awkward silence again because now Stiles felt a lot closer to him, which Derek suddenly realised was not in an emotional way. Stiles was literally closer to him.

He looked down and saw that the chair had been slowly rolling him across the room, so gradually he hadn’t even noticed. He put his foot down abruptly to stop it, and the sound of his shoe hitting the floor made Stiles jump.

“Sorry,” Derek said immediately, gesturing to the chair. “I seem to have journeying across the room.”

Stiles smiled and explained that the floor was at a slight angle because of the backwall of the house being badly built, their house the last on the block to be finished, the builders getting lazy and careless. He liked it though, he said, “not because it gives the room character or such bullshit like that, it’s just a little off balance and fucked up and so it’s a good fit for me.”

“You know,” Stiles said after he caught Derek looking at the bookshelves for the third time, “if you want to borrow stuff you can. Not the dusty old research crap, that’s not your bag, I mean my actual books. You said yourself you’re broke and you’re gonna be bored, you may as well take some.”

“I’m a terrible reader,” Derek laughed, “within two minutes of sitting down with something I’m asleep. My mum used to --,” he stopped for a moment at the memory, the wince of mental anguish still ever present, “she used to read everything to me and Laura because I was so hopeless at it. Doesn’t matter how many times I’ve tried.”

“There’s no rush, if it takes a chapter a month, I won’t forget. I’ve got everything catalogued on there,” Stiles replied, pointing to his computer. “Danny’s been teaching me all sorts of stuff.”

Derek felt something then, something unexpected and fierce and fleeting. Jealousy. Not that Danny was teaching him computing; Derek didn’t have a clue with that stuff, but that Stiles was spending time with Danny. Just the thought of it was twisting something sharp into his stomach, and unlike the physical sensation, this wouldn’t heal nearly as fast.

“I haven’t even heard of any of these books,” Derek said, sullenly. It was another reminder of how opposite him and Stiles were, how unlikely they would be to work.

“Hey, what? Why are you going all New Hale on me? I’m afraid only the original and best Derek Hale is allowed in here,” Stiles said worriedly, reaching over and pulling the corners of Derek’s mouth up into a smile, pulling an extremely silly face at him until he smiled without help.

“Just -- nothing. It was nothing. Recommend me something?”

Just like that all his doubts were forgotten as Stiles looked beyond thrilled to be asked, jumping up in delight and bounding across to the shelves, almost crashing into them in his haste. “It absolutely beyond definitely has to be these, I don’t even need to _think_ about it! I mean they’re young adult books but that is doing them such a disservice because like -- oh god I can’t spoil it for you, you have to just read it,” Stiles said, brandishing three books at him. Derek looked tentatively at the cover.

“The Golden Compass,” he read, frowning. “It sounds a bit Harry Potter.”

“Oh man it’s nothing like that, although if that was you dissing Harry Potter I will physically kick you out of that window, don’t you even dare even suggest it.” Stiles leans over and opens the front cover for him. “Seriously, start reading. I need to get back to this book of Deaton’s, but you can try before you borrow.”

“I can just go --”

“You cannot just go. I know I was an ice king before, but I’m really glad to see you and I don’t want you to go yet. It’s been a year, dude, you owe me some serious time.”

Which is how Derek found himself leaning back in the computer chair, book in hand, feet propped on the end of the bed and occasionally brushing against Stiles’s as he flicked his legs back and forth like demented pendulums as he scanned through Deaton’s volume on Oriental mythology.

***

“Derek. Derek. _Derek!_ ”

Derek shot up out of sleep, and in doing so rolled the chair forward heavily so that it collided with Stiles and tipped him out all in one fluid motion, Derek’s weight knocking Stiles down so they both ended up sprawled on the floor in a heap together.

“How many pages did you manage?” Stiles grunted in his ear as he shifted his weight.

“Three,” Derek whispered shamefully.

Stiles laughed loud in his ear making him jump back a little. “You really are the worst. I wasn’t sure it was true.”

Their eyes met, and Derek was suddenly very aware of the fact that they were pressed together on the floor, staring at each other like strangers for the second time that day. He went to pull himself up off Stiles, but was stopped by a hand to the shoulder.

“I really missed you.”

Stiles looked so open as he said it, so sincere, that Derek wanted to reach forward and just hold him, tell him he was never going anywhere again. Derek knew this feeling, not well, but enough to make some very quick conclusions. This was part of why he needed to come back, not just because it was home, but because it could be a real home with the right person. The right person who was maybe right here in front of him.

Of course Cora had known, it was in the subtle ways she had mentioned when Stiles had texted her about Scott and the pack, the way his was always the name she brought up first and lingered on last, must have seen the blue flash in his eyes even if he didn’t know it was there. It was why she’d made him go back.

“I missed you too,” he said, and a voice in his head said _just go for it_ , so he did. He leaned forward to kiss him.

Unfortunately the same voice had also spoken to Stiles and their faces collided, the sharp crack of teeth bouncing off each other sounding out as they both shook their heads loose of the shock. Then they both laughed, neither of them able to wipe the smile from their face, because their first kiss might have turned into an all out disaster but it was a disaster they had both tried to make happen.

“Did you --” Stiles began.

“Yes.”

“We should probably get up now.”

“Yeah, we should.”

But they didn’t, instead choosing to stay on the floor doing nothing but laying together, enjoying the contact and the easy silence they had now, the feel of a cheek against a bicep, a stubbled chin pressing against turrets of hair all they needed right then.

“Come on,” Stiles said suddenly, “get up here.”

He climbed on the bed, and beckoned for Derek to follow.

“Isn’t it a little soon?” Derek asked.

“Oh my god, that is _not_ what’s going on here.”

Derek fought to hide his blushing, especially when Stiles mentioned that that would be saved for another time. “Another time very soon,” he winked, “but right now I just want to come sit up here with me. Oh, and bring the book,” he added, pointing to where it lay mournfully on it’s side under the chair.

“What are you --” Derek started to ask as he flopped down beside him, arms casually overlapping, but Stiles reached across and placed a finger across his lips to quieten him. Derek’s senses were going wild at the proximity, and he had a terrible urge to reach out his tongue and slowly lick it, but Stiles’s voice halted him.

“Lyra and her daemon moved through the darkening Hall, taking care to keep to one side, out of sight of the kitchen. The three great tables that ran the length --”

“Are you reading to me?” Derek asked incredulously.

“Is that --? Should I not --? You said --,” Stiles stuttered nervously, unable to finish any single thought.

Derek shushed him gently, smiled at him. “I think it’s amazing, Stiles. I was just, I don’t know, in disbelief that you’d do that for me.”

“I can’t wait two years for you to actually manage to finish the damn things,” Stiles smirked, “it’s not really altruism at all, just impatience.” But Derek knew it wasn’t really true, otherwise he’d probably just have bought him the audiobook. Maybe. He wasn’t about to mention it and find out.

“Can I continue?”

“Absolutely.”

“The three great tables that ran the length of the Hall were laid already, the silver and the glass catching what little light there was, and the long benches were pulled out ready for the guests…”

***

Stiles’s father had had a long day.

Unusually for Beacon Hills, all the crime happening had a non-supernatural explanation and therefore required actual police work, which meant that the sheriff decided on a long, hot shower before seeing if Stiles fancied some takeaway as a treat. The treat was for him, since it was the only way Stiles ever let him eat unhealthily.

Walking up the stairs, he heard something which completely put him off his food.

“Derek, no, my throat is killing me, I can’t carry on any longer.”

“Please, it’s so good, I never want it to stop!”

Despite the truly abominable mental images he was now desperately trying to wipe from his mind, the sheriff was determined to let his son get up to whatever he wanted to get up to. Two things stopped him simultaneously; hearing his son shout “oh my god seriously stop!” and finally registering that Stiles used the name Derek.

“Derek Hale,” he shouted as he threw open the door to find -- Stiles and Derek sat on the bed with a book.

“Yes?” Derek asked, quietly, unsure of how much trouble he was in.

Stiles gave his father a particularly confused frown. “What’s going on?”

“What’s going -- that’s what I want to know! What the hell is going on in here?”

“I’m reading to Derek,” Stiles replied, “I’m not really sure what the big deal is.”

The sheriff leant against the doorway, utterly perplexed. “I -- I heard -- I don’t want to think about what I heard, so if you want to tell me you were reading, then I will happily believe you.”

“What do you --” Stiles began, stopping as the horror dawned on him. “No, no no no, oh my god, why would you think that?”

Derek was turning a particularly interesting shade of coral pink as the situation became increasingly uncomfortable, and Stiles could feel him slowly inching his way to the edge of the bed. “I should -- I should go,” he muttered, standing up and making his way to the window before quickly checking himself and turning round, cringing internally at his mistake.

Stiles’s father hadn’t noticed; he was too busy trying to process everything that was happening.

“Why were you reading to him? I just don’t get it -- you know what, I don’t care, we can talk about this over dinner. I need a shower, and hopefully I can cleanse my brain of this whole incident in the process.”

Derek was now in the doorway, but the sheriff didn’t move.

“This wasn’t the best way to reintroduce ourselves, but I’m glad to see you back, Derek.”

“Thank you, Officer Stilinski.”

“No need to be so formal these days, son, just call me --”

“Dad, seriously.”

Stiles’s father walked away finally, and Stiles gave Derek an apologetic shrug, suddenly finding himself unable to speak. This was like a year ago all over again, Derek walking out of the door and this time Stiles is afraid, because he knows Derek could just disappear again. It happened once, and that’s all it takes.

“Can I come round again tomorrow?” Derek said, breaking the silence. “I really need to know what happens next.”

Stiles tried not to exhale too loudly at the relief he feels. “Sure,” he forced out, smiling probably too much to compensate for the weird look that was undoubtedly on his face. “I’ll rest my voice especially.”

“Your dad will be thrilled.”

“Shut up.”

Derek walked out of the room, and like that it was over. The afternoon that changed Stiles’s life was over, and once again Derek hadn’t even said goodbye. He was annoyed and upset and jubilant all at once, and it was difficult to work out exactly how he felt because of it. He just hoped this time it was a beginning, not an end.

Then Derek poked his head round the door.

“I nearly forgot, there’s one more thing I need to say before I go,” he said.

“What’s that?” Stiles asked, because just like that he’d gone from being angry that he didn’t say goodbye, to desperately wanting him not to.

He didn’t.

“Hello.”

Stiles threw a cushion at his head, trying not to laugh along with Derek’s uproarious laughter as it faded away down the stairs.

**Author's Note:**

> This was born because I really want someone to read His Dark Materials to me, simple as that.
> 
> I also now have a great big HDM!fusion in my head that I'm not sure I could fully handle, but would love to try.
> 
> Comments are always appreciated, even if it's just to tell me that I've messed up my tenses (because I know I must have somewhere, past tense isn't usually my bag)


End file.
